Each month Design Tools Monthly reviews some of the best plug-ins and XTensions on the market. Most of the mentioned products can be purchased through The PowerXChange.
Death of Mac OS 9 Postponed to June
In the aftermath of Apple’s decision to support Mac OS 9 past January 1, 2003 — in contrast to earlier stated policies — Design Tools Monthly editor in chief Jay Nelson sent this analysis to subscribers. We thought you’d find his insight regarding QuarkXPress interesting. — Pamela Pfiffner, creativepro.com editor in chief
In our recent issues, we reported on Apple’s announcement that all new Macs manufactured on or after January 1 will startup only in Mac OS X. Apple has now changed its plan, and since it may affect your purchasing decisions, we bring you this story.
According to News.com, Apple has announced that it will continue to make one Mac that will startup in Mac OS 9. Apple’s statement is quoted: “To accommodate a minority of our pro customers still running Mac OS 9 applications such as QuarkXPress, Apple will continue to offer a 1.25GHz dual-processor Power Mac that will boot into Mac OS 9 until June.” You can read the full story here.
Starting January 1, all other Macs you buy will startup only in Mac OS X. So, if you want a PowerBook, iBook, iMac or eMac, and you may ever need to start it up in Mac OS 9, your best bet is to buy it before the end of this year.
While we have no “inside information,” we believe this delay is directly related to Quark’s delivery schedule for the Mac OS X-native version of QuarkXPress (version 6). We believe that QuarkXPress 6 will not ship in January, but may ship sometime before June. (However, it may ship after June, causing Apple to extend their support for OS 9 — with Quark, you just never know.)
Apple’s cost to support Mac OS 9 must be tremendous, including technical support and ongoing development to accommodate new technologies and Mac OS X. So, for Apple to commit to extending all their Mac OS 9 support and development for an additional 6 months is a huge financial investment. Why did they do it? Here are some numbers to consider: there are currently about 20 million Macintosh users worldwide. There are currently about 2 million users of QuarkXPress on Macintosh worldwide. That means that at least one in ten Macintoshes has QuarkXPress running on it, and if QuarkXPress isn’t native to Mac OS X, Apple stands to lose a tremendous number of Macintosh sales. And this loss could be permanent, if people switch to Windows to use QuarkXPress natively.
While it’s a shame that Quark couldn’t pull together the resources to release a Mac OS X-native version of QuarkXPress within two years of the release of Mac OS X in March 2001, Apple’s announcement clearly indicates the importance of QuarkXPress to Macintosh sales, and partly explains Quark’s power to delay their development as long as they have.
We hope this information helps you make informed decisions about your move to Mac OS X, and your upgrade plans for QuarkXPress.
Plug-Ins and XTensions
Dreamweaver
- Professional Tool Checks Accessibility
UsableNet’s LIFT ($299) is a plug-in for Macromedia Dreamweaver that lets you check a website design for compliance with usability and accessibility requirements set forth in Section 508, Level 1 W3C/WAI and Priority 2 of the W3C/WCAG guidelines. You can run reports on one page, a complete site, selected sections, or any folder. Their website also has free accessibility extensions for Dreamweaver.
UsableNet
- Instant Illustrator Patterns
Artlandia SymmetryWorks 2.0 ($165) is a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator that lets you easily create and interactively edit symmetrical patterns and designs. You draw a simple shape, and SymmetryWorks rotates, reflects and spaces it to create a seamless pattern. As you edit the shape, the pattern updates in real time. You can add additional shapes to the pattern and view the change in real time as well.
Artlandia
- Instant Catalogs in PageMaker
Andromeda’s PhotoTiler ($44) is a plug-in for PageMaker 5-7 that automates the process of importing many photos and laying them out as a catalog, portfolio, website, or other picture-and-caption publication. You control the grid size, caption information, borders and rules.
Andromeda Software
- RedEyePro Filter
Andromeda RedEyePro Filter ($39) is a plug-in for Photoshop 6 or 7 that gives professional control over redeye removal, replacing the red color with natural iris tones, and preserving glints and reflective details and transitions. In Expert mode, you can even choose the color to remove (for animals). It runs natively in Mac OS X or 9.
Andromeda Software
- QuarkXPress 5 XTension List
ThePowerXChange has a Web page that lists all the commercial XTensions that are currently compatible with QuarkXPress 5. See it here.Drag Pictures Into QuarkXPress
Gluon’s DragIn ($59) is an XTension for QuarkXPress 4 & 5 that does two things: it lets you drag picture files from the Desktop onto a QuarkXPress document page, and it can automatically create a QuarkXPress catalog of pictures from multiple picture files. If you drag one picture file from your desktop onto a QuarkXPress document page, it creates a picture box and fills it with your picture. If you drag several picture files onto the document page, it creates as many boxes and pages as necessary to accommodate the pictures. You have complete control over box size, and whether it optionally labels each text box with the file name, size, resolution, creator and type. In addition, you can drag a picture from a Web page onto a QuarkXPress document page, and it downloads the picture to the folder containing the document, then imports the picture.
Gluon - The Most Powerful Scaler
Gluon’s ProScale ($95) is an XTension for QuarkXPress or a plug-in for InDesign that lets you resize an entire multipage *document* with complete control of what gets scaled, and how. For example, you can scale all the pages of a document, including the text, but maintain rule and/or frame sizes. You can scale pages non-proportionally, while maintaining the proportions of page items. You can save your settings to re-use in the future, and undo a scaling operation with Command-Z. A “Fit To” popup menu lets you choose common sizes such as A4, A5, business card, 1/3 page, 1/2 page, letter size, tabloid size, etc. Or, you can just click and drag selected items to a new size. You can quickly fit an entire ad to a column width, or scale from the center of a selection. You can step-and-repeat your scaling — perfect for logo sheets. It’s extremely fast, and lets you undo the scaling!
Gluon - Word-to-XPress
Bitmix’s qXport ($99) is an add-in for Microsoft Word that converts Word documents to QuarkXPress. It converts as many Word features as possible, including Index marks, Headers & Footers, tabbed tables, bullets, lists, symbols, paragraph and character style sheets, and colored text. qXport works with all versions of Word (Mac and Windows) starting with Word 97/98 and with QuarkXPress starting from Version 3.x. Works with Mac OS X, OS 9, and Windows.
Bitmix — Note: The site is in German.
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This article was last modified on January 18, 2023
This article was first published on January 8, 2003
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